The party’s policy commission on Higher Education has prepared its consultation paper and is now seeking comments.

Overall, the commission clearly seeks to keep an open mind, but I hope many grassroots members will make their voice heard. Personally, I’ll be writing in to back our current policy against tuition and top-up fees. I am sure the commission will add much nuance to our ideas, but at the core, I’d be sad if we moved away from this principled stand.

7 Comments

As someone who is currently working in the learning sector I find Richard’s post concerning. Not for what he says, but how he describes the Commission. If you look at the site it is very clear that they are asking for us to have a say “on important issues relating to the future of Further and Higher Education”.

As a Party we do have a tendency to be somewhat highbrow (even Guardianista) and it is crucial that we get our policies right for the whole skills sector – but how often do we ever hear our spokespeople or party members talking about the FE sector or work based learning?

So a plea, do let’s concentrate on the whole area of post-compulsory education skills training and not become fixated on HE alone.

A very fair comment and a fair cop guv; I was personally concerned about the HE fees issue when I first saw the document, but you’re right that developing policy on wider HE/FE issues is much-needed. It looks like the commission will do exactly that.

On top up/tuition fees, my vote is for the party to either radically increase the amount it is willing to spend on HE (which I doubt) or to redirect the money it is committed to spending on this policy on student maintenance instead.

The fees policy is only of benefit to students of comparatively well-off backgrounds and is barely defensible on social justice grounds. What’s more, the system has bedded down now and we have large numbers of young voters who had to pay fees: what are we saying to them? I can’t see it remaining a major issue in the next General Election, let alone the one after that.

Sure, it would be nice to do more about both fees AND maintenance, but the pot is limited and the party has never chosen to prioritise this above other spending commitments. So it is time we bit the bullet.

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